Message from WMAA President, Dennis Hinschberger

By Dennis Hinschberger, BA’86

Tim Labrinos leads the football alumni in cheering on another Western football victory; 2024 Western Sports Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award winners and Individual Inductees

Last year, our past-president Patricia Kitchen, BA’74, BEd’75, MA’77, opened our December issue of the Scoop with a very interesting personal message about connections with former teammates that brought home the point that we never forget our “heydays” as Western athletes, and particularly the strong friendships we made along the way.

Fast forward to the present as I was reading a group email to Western’s football alumni, a group that is so well organized by Tim Lambrinos, BSc’86.

Another one of our former teammates, Sean McLare, was offering to host football alum at his home prior to our tilt with Toronto Varsity Blues. Unfortunately, I could not make it but it was another successful Western alumni event.

A few nights later I was watching a great documentary on my favorite band, The Tragically Hip, and who shows up on the screen, but Gord Gibson, BA’87, (football ’83, rugby ’85). Gibson’s dad was a famous Canadian cinematographer who produced the “Solitudes” tapes that highlighted peaceful sounds from the wild. The Loon calls that feature in some of the band’s most memorable songs, including Wheat Kings (iconic!) came from these tapes.

I highlighted Gibson’s part in the documentary to the 100 or so football alumni in our email group, and who pipes in but former football alums Scotty McLauchlan and Johnny Planeta, BA’86 writing, “Hinch, played golf with him [Gibson] last week, with Simon Rytham-Clayton (rugby ’85) and he’s doing great!”

It seemed like an overload of football memories that week as all the names kept flooding in on various messages describing our mutual nostalgia.

I have to say that one of the best things about my involvement with the WMAA is that I get to reach back into all those now very old relationships built on the field, or working at the Spoke or The Ceeps, with wrestlers, track & field athletes, basketball dudes, hockey buds, maybe a figure skater or two, and of course, my very close football comrades. It was all so very worthwhile. What fond memories.

This past Homecoming, we inducted another illustrious group of former Western athletes as we celebrated the 2024 WMAA Hall of Fame event.

Congratulations again to all of our WMAA Hall of Fame inductees for 2024:

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS

Frank Cosentino, HBA’60, MA’69, PhD’73

Angela Schneider, BA’82, MA’85, MA’87, PhD’93

INDIVIDUAL INDUCTEES:

Brianne Barry, BMOS’13 – Wrestling

Micah Bourdeau, BA’00 – Basketball

Jayne Cation, BSc’08 – Rugby

Patrice Denis, BSc’97 – Football

Cindy Elliott Pavan, BA’80 – Volleyball

Ed Gardner, BA’97, HBA’99 – Rugby

Rick Odegaard, BA’69 – Builder

Ellie Seedhouse, BA’11 – Hockey

TEAM INDUCTEES:

Football – 1976 & 1977 Yates Cup Champions,  
Forest City Bowl Champions and Vanier Cup National Champions

Women’s 1980 Heavy Eight Rowing – Canadians (gold),  
Canadian Jr. & Sr. Henley (gold), International Regatta in Mexico (silver)

A very sincere thank-you to our 2024 WMAA Hall of Fame sponsors; Western Alumni Association, ReMax Realty – Dan and Mackenzie Hinschberger, RBC Dominion Securities - Bain Wealth Group, Richardson Wealth & Steve Hunter, London Property Corp – Ray Stanton, Goodlife Fitness, and London Commercial Realty – Mike Evans.

Please enjoy the many rich stories in this winter edition of The Scoop and feel free to send us some feedback!

Wishing all of our readers a very special holiday season and all the best in 2025!